BAGHDAD, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- At least nine people were killed in separate attacks and clashes between soldiers and militants in northern Iraq, security officials said Monday.
In Kirkuk province, three soldiers were killed and five others injured when unidentified gunmen attacked an army checkpoint in Safra village, Anadolu Agency reported.
Separately, gunmen attacked members of the pro-government Al-Sahwa militia near the village of Shamsiya in southern Kirkuk, killing two of them, officials said.
A local leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant and three of his colleagues were killed in a security operation in the Saladin province, a military official said.
"A joint army-police force carried out an operation late Sunday during which the ISIL leader in Suleiman Beik and three companions were killed in a gunfight," Abdel-Amir al-Zaidi of the army-run Tigris Operations Command told Anadolu Agency.
